Visa approved

02.12.2014

Well, I was just given notice that my work visa has been approved to go to Singapore in about a month. After two employers that insisted they would get my work visa after I got there, this is a refreshing change.

I'm currently working at The Source in Seaway mall in Welland for the Christmas season, my friend from high school is the manager there.

In Honduras, I managed to quit/get fired, get brutally dumped and contract a giardia parasite all in a matter of a few days.

Here is the story of that:

I complained A LOT at the Honduran school about the off-site photocopier situation, the LOCKED UP water jugs, the lack of books FOR TEACHERS (all the students had iPads, it was not for lack of money that I didn't have any books) and the fact that I'm a science teacher and do not have keys for the science lab. This led to ill-feelings by the principals at the school, who were all very closely related to each other.

The students in one of my classes were terrible, so I gave them marks they deserved. This didn't go unnoticed and before long, they were making things up about me to the principal. One of my students even apologized to me, saying she did it because she was mad at me for having some of her participation marks taken away.

I would mutter things under my breath like "This school can build a giant telescope on the roof but they can't have any extension cords," which would be reported directly to the principal by my evil students. On top of this I was making the grand total of $600/month for all of my troubles here (37 hours of in-class teaching each week for advanced high school lessons). One of my co-workers also blabbed to the principal, because I said I was going to leave at Christmas and not come back. I would remind you also, at this point nothing at all had been mentioned to me about my pending work visa, or whether I would ever be working in this country legally at all. That was the case for all new teachers at this school.

One day, the principals sat me down and accused me of hitting a student in the temple and that was it. I was not welcome anymore on the premises. I WISH there were cameras in the classrooms at this school. Completely fabricated story, obviously. The principals offered me money to change my flight and I took it gladly, on the acknowledgement that I would "help them" by not saying anything bad about their school when I left. Pffft, whatever, jerks.

So, I had nothing to do for a few months. I had a flight booked home for Christmas on Dec. 20. Thinking I would take the flight change money and bum around Central America for a while, I started setting up couch surfing hosts. Things were looking up. I was gonna go diving on Roatan and Utila and have a grand old time exploring Mayan ruins etc. etc.

The day before I would venture out on my grand tour, my favourite person in the whole world Skyped me and informed me that he didn't want to "date" anymore. I can't remember the last time we were dating, but the point was that I was also not welcome to visit him in Italy next year. The reason I was given, was that he's "just not into that" and that he thought I was planning his life for him or something… After going along with the Italy plans for what, three months? OK… well great, thanks. Good timing, jerk.

Trying to forget everything, I took a bus out of town the morning I was supposed to be kicked out of the crappiest hotel room in the world. I guess the principals thought I was going to trash their apartment, so the school graciously put me in there. I don't know.

On my way to the first host, a day's travel away, I started feeling sick. I was feverish and queasy. I thought I was just stressed and needed to rest. My first host, Luis was awesome about it. But before long, my butt was exploding in his toilet and in the morning, I went to the doctor. He gave me three shots in my hindquarters over the course of two days and some crazy strong antibiotics. The sickness became more manageable after that, but I was still feeling terrible. I had giardia. REALLY! AWESOME! My host Luis let me stay in his small town for three days until I felt well enough to continue on my way.

After visiting the Mayan ruins of Copan, staying way too long at my second host's house in La Entrada, accepting and quitting a volunteer job the very next day, I gave up. I found a cheap flight change price to Toronto and went home, where I would stay, wallowing in my sorrow for a month and a half until leaving for Singapore.

Wow! A work visa BEFORE I go! How refreshing!